Sophie Tapie is an author, musician and actress. She is also the daughter of businessman Bernard Tapie. We saw him in the cinema, on stage in the theater and on TV in the show The Voice on TF1, in 2012. His first album, Wildreleased in 2015, was a declaration of love to country music and his album, 1988marked her attraction for the pop of the 80s. She reissues the latter, in an increased version 1988 rises from the ashes.
franceinfo: Among the 11 tracks that make up this album, The Phoenix talks about resurrection, fight for life, a title that refers to your family. 1988 rises from the ashes defines you perfectly?
Sophie Tapie: Yes, there was a before and an after, of course, as anyone can imagine. So, I preferred to do a reissue of this album because I had things to add.
There are four new titles. What did you want to add?
With my words, I wanted to add the fact of living fully, at 100%. I always see life on the bright side. I wanted to talk about this facet of my personality.
Obviously, you are assimilated to the businessman, Bernard Tapie. But, at the same time, you didn’t really experience your father’s rise since you arrived late in the family.
I arrived very late. It started to get a little more complicated when I was six or seven. Afterwards, it was a very, very long fight against justice, against the French state. I did not know this kind of “Tapie Mania”, of fan attitudeI only knew him through Olympique de Marseille.
It’s hard to live, right? You were assimilated to this when you were very young.
I do not know. I have the impression that it brought me more than served in my personality. I’m very hard on myself and I’m very hard on others.
I think I’m ready to face just about anything in life.
Sophie Tapieat franceinfo
What do you keep from your father?
It’s a silly phrase.The Vice and the Screwdriver“. Everything is said in there.
And your mother?
Wisdom, too. She is even stronger than my father. She doesn’t show herself, but she has, I think, even more balls than him, quite honestly. She is going through something absolutely infamous right now, completely left out, but she is unfailingly strong. I try to get as close to her as possible.
Your parents gave you a lot of support to do what you wanted to do. You started by going on stage. You fell in love with Johnny Cash and you decide to learn a trade and leave for England, very young, to take classes at the Regent’s Arts Education School. This school also allowed you to know a little more about who you were.
I was psychologically ready to tell myself that it was going to be even harder for me because there would always be this judgment and this shadow behind me which will say: “Yeah, but if she’s here, it’s because…“So I said to myself: the best test is to see if somewhere else, where they have absolutely no idea who I am, am I taken or not? And from the moment I was taken, I said to myself: it will never affect me again if someone tells me that I am not in my place because me, when I look in the mirror, I know that I deserve this place.
When you get out of there, you’re going to go on stage for the play: Oscar and you are the only person to have boosted your father! That is to say that it is you who are going to whisper your father’s name to the director to make him come.
The ‘Oscar’ piece is the only time I shared something artistic with my father.
Sophie Tapieat franceinfo
It was hard, my father wasn’t just an actor, he didn’t know how to confine himself to his role as an actor, he had to manage everyone.
Wasn’t that too much for you? Did he give you space?
No… He didn’t leave space for anyone! But precisely, it is the best school, to find space when there is none. Because yes, sometimes it was complicated, even at family dinners, the attention had to be on him. He was the boss. But it’s good on the other hand, because despite all the storms we went through, there was still the captain. The boat was my mother. But the captain was at his post, he never abandoned his post and that’s super reassuring. It’s a bit of an animal instinct. You feel very protected against someone like that.
When the album came out, what was highlighted was the phoenix. You say : “Without freedom, I do not know how to do. As the phoenix rises from its ashes, my soul is not for sale”.
In fact, I speak for him. This song, I wrote it as he was, him, through my eyes. That’s what I heard him say when talking about him. Freedom, it’s true that you can’t buy it. He lived it when he was in prison. It was the biggest trauma of his life, even more than the disease, I think.
Until the end of the end, he remained upright. He tried…
Yes, he never wanted to spend a night in the hospital.
Did you find the time before he left to have a real conversation with him?
I didn’t need “last moments” because I had 33 years to tell him.
Are you going to give yourself even more opportunities to do yourself good, to expose yourself?
I will continue to write. I like to write for others too. It’s a good exercise because it takes me away from my own life. I feel like I’m getting out of my body when I do this kind of exercise, I like it.
And then, it’s also a way to allow him to continue to live.
That’s exactly it, but it’s a bit of pressure, I feel it, being a public person, it’s in spite of ourselves. My family put a little pressure on me without wanting to. It’s not me the eldest, it’s not me who will manage the family. Not at all. For me, Tapie is a brand and the problem is that on the milk carton, now it’s my head and that puts a little pressure, I’m going to have to relax.